Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Tagged with New York Bicycle Accident

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PrintGair Gair Conason Steigman Mackauf Bloom & Rubinowitz was featured in the New York Law Journal’s Top New York Verdicts of 2014 for obtaining the highest award for a verdict in a motor vehicle accident involving a bicycle.  The case was tried by our Managing Partner Ben B. Rubinowitz, along with our Partner, Peter J. Saghir.  The accident involved a 36-year-old woman who was riding her bicycle south on Broadway across East 14th Street when she was struck from behind by a New York City Transit Authority bus which was traveling southbound in the same direction as the plaintiff.  After she was struck by the bus she was dragged into the intersection where the right rear wheels of the bus rolled over her legs.  The bus driver claimed that he was in the center or left lane at the time of the accident and that the plaintiff suddenly and unexpeNY Personal Injury Lawyers Rubinowitz and Saghirctedly rode her bicycle across two lanes of traffic from the right lane to the left lane and struck the right side of the bus.  The plaintiff contended she was in the right lane as she approached the intersection.  It was undisputed that the plaintiff ended up in the left-hand lane of this three lane roadway.  The plaintiff suffered a degloving injury to her right leg as well as fractures to the distal tibia and fibula of her left leg.  The plaintiff’s entire claim was based on pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.  No claims were made for past or future medical expenses or past or future lost earnings.  After two days of deliberation, the jury found the New York City Transit Authority at fault and awarded the plaintiff $8,570,000 ($3,250,000 past pain and suffering and $5,320,000 future pain and suffering  over 40.9 years).

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40 people died and  10,069 suffered personal injury in a traffic crash in New York City between January 1st and April 1st 2015 compared to respectively 51 and 10,805 in 2014 and 69 and 11,676 in 2013.  it is also interesting to note that there were more accidents during the three first months of this year compared to the same period of the 2 previous years. These numbers indicate that streets are getting a little safer for New Yorkers and that Vision Zero may be starting to show some results.

traffic accidents deaths and injuries NYC jan to march 2015
23 pedestrians died in traffic accidents in NYC during the first three months of the year compared to 31 for the first three months of 2014 and 44 for the same period of 2013. This number is still high but over the last two years it almost decreased by half which is a positive evolution.  The number of pedestrians injured in a crash in NYC during that same period was 2,423 in 2015 compared to 2,847 in 2014 and 3,080 in 2013.

pedestrian detahs and injuries in NYC jan to march 2015

1 person died in a bicycle accident in New York City during the first trimester of 2015 compared to 2 the previous year and 1 in 2013. 355 cyclists suffered personal injury during the same period compared to 399 in 2014 and 510 in 2013. It is difficult to look at bicycle accident statistics for the months of January, February and March as it is the end of the Winter season and not many people use their bikes.

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Our partners, New York personal injury lawyers Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Sagir represented the family of Marilyn Dershowitz, a retired Manhattan Supreme Court special referee who died in a bicycle accident during which she was hit by a postal tractor trailer truck.  Following a two-week bench trial in February U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn found the federal government 100% liable for the fatal accident in a 72 page Opinion.

The accident happened on Saturday July 2, 2011. Marylin and her husband Nathan Dershowitz of Dershowitz, Eiger & Adelson, and the brother of Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz,  were riding their bikes on West 29th street between Ninth and Tenth Ave in Manhattan, New York. Both were wearing a helmet. As they rode under an overpass connecting two US postal mail facilities, the road was narrowed by a protruding Postal Trailer that was perpendicularly parked at a dock. As Mrs Dershowitz was about to ride her bike in the narrower side way, just behind her another postal trailer, driven by Ian Clement, was competing with a silver minivan to get in first in the narrower roadway as  due to the parallel parked trailers to the south and the protruding perpendicular Postal Trailer to the north, cars were not able to travel side-by-side. The postal trailer got in before the minivan but he didn’t see the cyclist and hit her as he was veering to the right to be able to fit into the roadway.

Southern District Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled Wednesday that the federal government was 100 percent liable for the accident. Netburn said “a preponderance of the credible evidence” showed that Clement’s driving and the placement of a postal trailer protruding into the street were the “sole, proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries. Mrs. Dershowitz was not contributorily negligent.”

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3449 people were injured and 13 people died  in traffic accidents in New York City in January 2015 compared to respectively 3899 and 21 in January 2014 , 3993 and 28 in January 2013 and 4179 and 21 in January 2012. These numbers are encouraging and may indicate that the Vision Zero Program started approximately a year ago may be effective in making New York City streets safer. Data from December 2014 and January 2015 also show, for the first time, two consecutive months during which the total monthly number of traffic fatalities was below 14. The total number of motor vehicle accidents was stable. Below are graphs depicting traffic accident rates from January, 2013 to January 2015 for various types of accidents for each month for this time period in NYC.

Traffic fatalities NYC january 2015
Motor Vehicle Accident injuries by month in NYC
Motor Vehicle Accidents NYC january 2015
6 pedestrians died in traffic accidents in January 2015 compared to 12 in January 2014, 20 in January 2013 and 12 in January 2012. This is the lowest number since May 2013. This is also half the number recorded the same month a year before.  In January 2015, 902 pedestrians suffered personal injury after being struck by a car compared to respectively 1075, 1107 and 1045 in 2014, 2013 and 2012. Its the first time that this number is below 1000 for the month of January.

Pedestrian deaths and injuries NYC January 2015
115 people were injured and 1 person died in bicycle accidents in January.  Bike accidents are usually at their lowest in New York City during the months of January and February because less people use their bikes because of the bad weather and the snow.

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10 pedestrians died and 1220 suffered personal injury  in traffic accidents last December bringing the total number of pedestrian deaths to 135  in 2014 compared to 168 in 2013 and 130 in 2014 according to car crashes data recently released by the NYPD.  The total number of pedestrians injured in vehicle accidents for 2014 was 11,000 compared to 11,978 the previous year, a decline of 8%. While pedestrian deaths are back around the level of 2012,  deaths as a result of a bicycle accident increased by 73% with 19 fatal bicycle accidents in 2014 compared to 11 in 2013. The number of people injured in a bicycle accident decreased by 2% with 3960 cyclists injured in 2014 compared to 4043 in 2014.

Globally New York City roads were less dangerous in 2014 than in 2013 with a total of 250 people dying in crashes in 2014 compared to 286 in 2013 – a decline of 12% – and 50,896 road users suffering personal injury in 2014 compared to 54,818 in 2013 – a decline of 7%.

new york traffic accident deaths 2013 2014new york traffic accident personal injuries 2013 2014
Even though pedestrian deaths and injuries decreased in 2014, the number of pedestrians suffering personal injury in a vehicle accident was above 1200 in December, the highest monthly number for the last two years. Monthly pedestrian deaths never went over 15 in 2014, an improvement compared to 2013, a year during which the monthly number of deaths jumped to 25 in November and 20 in January.

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The Merrill’s Law or “safe distance” Law was created after Merrill Cassell, a devoted cyclist, died in a bicycle accident during which he was struck by a bus that sideswiped him as he rode his bike along Route 119 in Greenburg (see video below).

The Law was enacted 5 years ago but very few tickets have been written under the Law.

In a recent article in the Lohud, Theresa Juva-Brown explains why this law offers little protection to cyclists.Read the article here.

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